World Cycling Championships in Australia: Review of the individual time trial & the sensation of the World Championships

The surprise was great. Everywhere. For everyone. "Sensational gold medal, historic achievement," wrote Norway's largest newspaper Aftenposten. At home, people were just as surprised as elsewhere. The competitors in Australia, the world press, the national coach and even the man in question: Tobias Foss, the new world champion in the individual time trial. "Can someone wake me up," he said after wiping his face in disbelief.

Cycling World Championships in Australia: Review of the women's races

Foss follows in Hushovd's footsteps

The last competitor also crossed the finish line - after 34 kilometres of racing against the clock, Swiss rider Stefan Küng missed the Norwegian's best mark by three seconds. Foss could be celebrated in Wollongong, Australia, as the sensation of the World Championships, the first world champion in the elite class individual time trial to come from Norway. Twelve years after compatriot Thor Hushovd was the first from the Scandinavian kingdom to be celebrated as professional world champion in the road race, also in Australia, in Geelong.

Tobias Foss the sensation of the World Cycling Championships in Australia

The sensation was particularly big because time trial competitions are actually easy to calculate - you know the candidates for victory, it's not about tactics, but about continuous pedalling power and the aerodynamics recorded in cw values. But on this day, neither the two-time world champion Filippo Ganna nor the Swiss European champion Stefan Bissegger were able to find their usual powerful stride. And the high-flyer Remco Evenepoel, who ultimately came third, perhaps lacked a bit of reserves - a week after his energy-sapping victory at the Vuelta and the gruelling journey halfway around the world, including the time difference.

And Küng? "I could cry," said the Swiss, who had recently finished second and third at the World Cycling Championships - he had beaten everyone he thought he had to beat. And then this Norwegian appeared - seemingly out of nowhere. Only his father Alf Magne had according to media reports 50 Norwegian kronerHe bet just under five euros on the victory of his own offspring - but he himself could hardly believe that the stake was multiplied a hundredfold after the World Cup title.

In fact, the 25-year-old Foss has long been regarded as a great talent of his generation - as evidenced by his victory at the 2019 Tour de l'Avenir, which is also known as the Tour de France of the U23 category. He just didn't develop quite as rapidly as other Avenir winners: Nairo Quintana, Egan Bernal, Tadej Pogacar. It took a little longer for Foss - but at least he was ninth in the Giro d'Italia last year. But there is also talk of many doubts that plagued the talent and paralysed his performance.

Tobias Foss: From biathlete to cyclist

Growing up in Vingrom, a village of 759 inhabitants on Lake Mjösa near Lillehammer, the Olympic city of 1994, the youngster initially tried his hand at biathleting - but by his own admission, he missed too often and ended up in cycling. Norway's endurance talents have long been trying their hand at more than just cross-country skiing and related disciplines such as the biathlon. Foss is just the forerunner of a development that has continued since Thor Hushovd's successes. Great cycling careers are no longer isolated cases like Knud Knudsen in the 1970s or a coincidence like Dag Otto Lauritzen, who only switched to cycling after an accidental parachute jump as a soldier and won Olympic bronze in 1984.

For several years now, the Scandinavians have been winning in the junior classes: Sven Erik Byström and Kristoffer Halvorsen recently won the rainbow jerseys in the U23 category, while Per Strand Hagenes won the junior category last year. Tobias Halland Johannessen won the Tour de l'Avenir 2021, compatriot Johannes Staune-Mittet finished second this year. And at the World Cycling Championships in Australia, Sören Waerenskjold first won the U23 time trial title and then bronze in the road race.

An association without money

In Norway, however, they have also experienced that such a world championship is a double-edged sword - especially when you organise it yourself. The Road World Championships in Bergen 2017 ended with a mountain of debt of 9.5 million Norwegian kroner (around 950,000 euros) for Norges Cykleforbund. A disaster - this sum corresponds to the budget that the Norwegian Cycling Federation has available for around five to six years for the sporting activities of its talented and top athletes. "Without the money from Uno-X, cycling in Norway would be dead," says Stig Kristiansen, Norway's national coach for many years and now sports director at Team Uno-X.

Uno-X sponsored the association's activities for four years. Ex-professional Kurt Asle Arvesen is the team's head of sport and national coach. The well-being of Norwegian cycling is closely linked to the sponsor, which operates a network of petrol stations in Norway and Denmark. Under the leadership of Jens Haugland, Managing Director of the company with cycling-enthusiastic owners, a professional team has been racing under the Norwegian flag since 2020. Talent is still leaving - like Foss, who switched from the Uno-X junior team to Jumbo-Visma. But that is set to change - the team's goal: a World Tour licence.

Conditions have also improved on the way to a coveted professional contract, explains Kristiansen. There are now seven sports schools in Norway that offer cycling instead of the previous two. Foss emerged from the NTG school in Lillehammer. "We are currently riding a good wave at the World Championships. But we are still a small cycling nation, we have too few cyclists at a high level. So it's all fragile," warns national coach Arvesen. But the next generation is already on the starting line. Jörgen Nordhagen, runner-up at the European Championships and visually one of the strongest riders in the junior world championship race as a 17-year-old, and Johannes Kulset are considered candidates for the first Tour victory by a Norwegian. It could be that the scene will have to get used to great successes by Norwegian cyclists in the long term.

World Cycling Championships 2022: Results individual time trial (34.2 km)

1. Tobias Foss (NOR), 40:02 min (51.257 km/h)
2. Stefan Küng (SUI), +0:03 min.
3. Remco Evenepoel (BEL), +0:09
4. Ethan Hayter (GBR), +0:40
5. Stefan Bissegger (SUI), +0:47
6. Tadej Pogacar (SLO), +0:48
7. Filippo Ganna (ITA), +0:56
8. Nelson Oliveira (POR), +0:59
9. Yves Lampaert (BEL), +1:09
10. Bruno Armirail (FRA), 1:10

... 16th Nikias Arndt (GER), +1:43; ... 20th Miguel Heidemann (GER), +2:01